By Sudip Bhattacharya
All he wanted to do was vape, shower, and drink. Alone if possible. Maybe not alone. He wasn’t so sure. Certainty was fool’s gold. Little did he know that Arjit, a friend of a friend of a friend, had been monitoring his devices from a truck just a block away. Much of it had to do with a political campaign Jian had been part of when he was still in undergrad just when federal troops had been occupying the cities. Part of it had to do with Arjit’s jealousy over Jian’s ability to drift in and out of friend groups, to be seen and perceived, and accepted in ways that attributed confidence in character. You know, being a decent person.
Although Zubair would’ve disagreed with this kind of characterization. She did, of course, feel out of place with everyone from where they grew up in East Brunswick, a town famously known for being at the “center” of New Jersey. Seriously, that’s the actual town slogan. You can see it when driving on Route 18 when entering from New Brunswick, caught in traffic usually, surrounded by vape shows in honor of the diets of undergrads spilling over from the Rutgers campus nearby, infiltrating what was once known as a sleepy suburb ensconced by cones of smog.
East Brunswick is fairly upper middle class, with its edges of low class, of filth. Maybe too harsh but them’s the breaks. That’s how some of Jian’s friends would’ve described the people now moving in, fleeing from the city to where they could afford, renting out sections of small houses on busy roads.
You open your window and all you hear is someone’s radio from a street, or someone’s muffled phone conversation bleeding into the subconscious. Back to Zubair and her pseudo-truth regarding Jian, how she viewed him as the best among the sea of men she’d been forced to navigate growing up between the Hindu temples and mosques. Jian, on the other hand, was possibly the only Chinese American who grew up where they were. Sometimes, he got along with the Koreans. Usually, he mixed it with Zubair and her class of friends.
“Arjit’s definitely a federales,” Zubair said one afternoon while lying in bed with Jian, their arms touching, a trail of smoke drifting above like chemtrails. That’s the first thing that at least came to mind for her.
“Hmm, he keeps saying he’s on a special task force,” Jian mused, glancing at Zubair’s legs peeking out from the sheets. A few minutes ago, Zubair had been on top, her hands calloused on each shoulder, shifting her hips, until the the burning sensation of her feet had quickly mutated into sharp stinging rods of electricity in her calves, prompting her to hop off, and holding up a finger to Jian’s lips as he was a second away from asking what he could do. Which was virtually nothing. She herself waited for the pain to subside, and by then, Jian had taken out his vape, and they partook in a mutually assured act of self-assuration, however threadbare and begging.
“It’s all gunk, apparitions,” she said, waving her hand to indicate so, “The van is from his uncle. He’s still at the store. He was on a police force for a hot second. But his family intervened, probably for the wrong reasons, but still.”
“What van?” Jian asked, arching an eyebrow, cartoonishly so as to hide truly his sense of dread and embarrassment at this lost fact.
“Honestly, I have no idea why he’s so obsessed with you,” she said, finally able to swing her legs off the bed, revealing her back, tinged with dried skin and bad tan. In a few moments, she would shower, layer on lotion, put on her hijab, and stand in front of the mirror, taking in deep breaths, as her legs burned, and burned, like matches were lit inside of her.
Jian had his ideas about the why, and made a mental note to pace outside his block more often. Fear was his response, understandably so but for some odd reason, Zubair seemed to think this was just something to navigate like any other problem a mentally ill wanna be enforce of the law doing stake outs that even the police never wanted.
According to Divya, who was one of the few people in their circle directly informed about Zubair’s new diagnosis, Zubair herself was consumed by other more pressing matters, like organizing the engagement party for her cousin, Farah, who also didn’t know about how all of the nerves up and down Zubair’s legs had been essentially damaged, fried like circuity over years and years of misdiagnosis and some measure of self-delusion. Neuropathy had been the official medical name for the problem although Zubair liked to call it, “rotting” from the inside, which always got Divya quite for a handful of minutes, forced to take another sip of tea, and pretend she was at the final TVOTR reunion tour instead although at this time, she’d equally prefer just being in bed by 9:30 pm, snoring her heart and lingering fears out.
A cascade of anxiety welcomed Divya every morning, and so, she simply upped her meds, and learned new breathing techniques from youtube which she’d share with Zubair at every opportunity Zubair deeply sighed in their conversations, which then reminded Zubair of her own mother who’d message her health tips from videos her mother had seen online, usually in the land of Facebook, which was holding by a thread to relevancy. A.I. generated content filtered through the prism of self-deluded ingenuity. Lungs gestating. Self-appointed gurus of life perched on cushions in their living rooms in soft spoken voices, the curtains drawn apart perfectly for that singular beam of light.
Divya, Jian, and Zubair had all attended Hammarskjold together, attended high-school, for a brief period, drifted off to separate campuses at Rutgers, moved to either Philly or Trenton for the subsequent years. Returned. Divya herself hadn’t really gone that far since her sister was getting sick, and so, she stayed to help. Calling insurance to make sure medications were being delivered on time had become its own full time job. Zubair pitched in when she could, calling, emailing, even at one point, driving all the way to the company’s regional headquarters in Paramus of all places, the land of hulking behemoths to capital growth, the various roads and lanes almost always leading riders and drivers back to the vaunted halls of some mini-ecosystem of food courts dripping with nostalgia otherwise known as shopping malls.
How could America not be so blessed when it had so many Wawas and automated checkout registers? But that was a year ago. Since then, Zubair had become nearly a rumor in terms of how she’d disappear for weeks, possibly from pain, only to reappear, rushing through a room while ordering the hired help to attend to the banners and other adornments for an engagement party or even for some distant cousin’s birthday that even that cousin, in this case, Irfan, didn’t really care for.
“He’s turning 36,” Zubair had said at the time, her speech slurring after another round of Gabapentin to ease her into her day, the drive to and from work gnawing internally, termite-like, persistent, and precise.
At first, Divya didn’t know how to respond. It was out of the said blue that Zubair even messaged her after nearly a month and a half of no response. In that same period of time, Divya herself had changed her job, broken up with her boyfriend of one year, and saw her own mother leave the country. She’d messaged all this to Zubair, only to receive a message under each text. Nothing else.
Anger and resentment were simmering, to put it lightly. And yet, here was Zubair, seen in daylight, having a coffee with her at a local Turkish place they used to go when they still lived miles apart but would return for the new year and other holidays between.
“36 is a milestone,” Zubair insisted, beaming, radiating. But also knocking a tiny spoon off the table when reaching for the pitcher filled with more tea. She chuckled, and apologized, and kept pouring. And Divya, taking a sip, simply observed, and measured her own tone very, very carefully.
Her vocal chords felt constricted.
The Mayor of East Brunswick wasn’t fully aware of Zubair’s condition, not that she wasn’t close to Zubair. In fact, the mayor’s mother’s friend attended the same mosque that Zubair’s family attended, on a tiny road behind a cluster of strip malls along Route 18, one of the main roads that connected the town from one end of billboards to another, with a stream of houses between, some with lawns as green as what you’d picture on TV shows from the early 1990s to some homes where the mailboxes are gradually tipping over instead.
The Lebanese community had emailed her, and subsequently, one of the local business owners called her too on the same afternoon, informing her office of yet another “incident” at the mainly Arab-attended church down the road from E.B. city hall. So far, it was suspected that Zionists had been the ones to throw pig’s blood, confusing the faith of the parishioners, of course, which is an age-old custom of the bigoted, all across the lawn. For the last few weeks, the church had a sign protesting Israel’s annexation of Beirut.
Never a fan of the church, having been forced to attend services by her mother and by her circle of nosy aunts who believed somehow Christ spoke to them directly regarding values and ethics in the 21st century, when pacifism itself seemed like a running joke, she still felt uniquely responsible. Her mother, after finding out what happened, immediately called, and the mayor instructed her secretary to inform her mother she was in a series of meetings, which was a delicate half-lie, or half-truth, depending on how one’s feeling that day.
She tried notifying some of her esteemed colleagues throughout the region, the Mayor of Edison, the Mayor of North Brunswick, and Sayreville. The Mayor of Edison, Hari Patel, had taken over from his predecessor, who had deep enough pockets to buy billboards around the area, labelling Hari a terrorist sympathizer. It was on Patel on Patel crime, Hari himself joked in previous mayoral meetings. That day, he had his own secretary respond, saying he was in meetings.
It was later that week when a group of activists arrived at her office, asking for updates directly. All she had were assurances from the town sheriff that they were still searching for clues and were not ceasing their investigation. One of the activists had been a friend of a friend’s daughter, and she’d just graduated from high school and was about to attend NYU. She wanted the Mayor to attend one of the upcoming Lebanese American festivals and to encourage the community to organize closer ties with other Arabs in the area. This, for some reason, irked the Mayor, and she wore a smiling face for the duration of the meeting with the young woman, and the older women and men who stood behind her, nodding their heads, holding signs. All this simply angered the mayor even more. Her own house had been egged several times.
What else did they expect her to do? But she couldn’t deny a sense of disappointment coursing through her own set of logics and behavior. That’s what her therapist had concluded after just two sessions of blabbering, the exact term she used to describe her own talking.
The weeks wore on. Another attack occurred. This time at a Turkish spice shop. Her daughter too needed braces before the school year started. The Mayor consulted with a friend of a friend of a friend who had once run a small town right outside Paterson, and they encouraged her to work with the activists closely, but only the ones who actually attended city hall meetings and sounded sane. Not the ones who had a penchant for attending but talking about that one pothole outside their house. It was a fine line between active participation and someone who clearly had too much time on their hands.
But this is the part of the conversation where the Mayor folded internally, without, of course, letting anyone know. She emailed the sheriff. Called the sheriff’s office. Finally, knocked on the sheriff’s front door at the sheriff’s home, the idea being to do so before the activists matured in their thinking and pursued the same route. The Mayor had emailed the sheriff, a white woman with extremely broad shoulders, about meeting there. So, there the Mayor was, on a relatively quiet weeknight, cars passing by slowly. Her knocking echoing further and further down the block at every passing second.
A fundamental recurring issue between Samir and Amit, as far as Jian understood it, was their inability to listen to one another when they were both frustrated. That and their inability as well to recognize how much the other had changed since they’d been best friends earlier in high school and undergrad.
Back then, from everyone else’s point of view, Samir and Amit were different but complementary, with Samir being rather passionate but also reasonable at times, while Amit’s ambitions soared beyond points that Samir and others couldn’t quite yet see, and yet those same ambitions didn’t travel beyond very tangible things all people needed, like rent money, or a paying for a mortgage.
However, at Zubair’s cousin’s engagement party, where Zubair herself rushed from one end of the hall to the other, greeting people, sporting a well manicured smile for all of the aunties at their respective tables, laughing at the perfect decibel level at jokes arrayed before her by uncles who’d be half-snoring through their second drink, chins tucked like they were in bed, Samir refused to listen to Jian’s warnings about Amit’s more recent behavior.
“I just need to talk to him, let him know he’s being a dick,” Samir had said, while they were in the main event hall of Akbar, a local Indo-Pak (meaning: Pakistani owned but too nervous to say so) restaurants that’d been around ever since Jian’s parents had moved to East Brunswick from further north back in the late 1990s. By then, he was just getting into Harry Potter books, and was still stuck downloading Spiderman imagery off DSL. The food at Akbar had always been at the border of good enough and very, very, extremely average. Lamb chops were often cooked well, while chicken kebabs somehow remained too chewy. Samir nibbled on a skewer full of chicken kebabs as he eyed the crowd of people milling around at the other tables. Jian had chosen to ingest a shroom earlier that morning in anticipation of everything.
“You don’t know him like I do,” Samir continued, “Something else is going on. When he has some kind of stress, that’s when he lashes out.”
You’re literally describing what normal people do. This isn’t in-depth 101. That was Jian’s own internal reflection on the situation, his mind slowly drifting now. How could he express delicately due to Samir’s own delicate heart, a criticism that Shaizya shared of her partner with Jian at another party when she was slurring her speech and creeping too close, that the person he knew, Amit, a shadow self, had taken over. Amit was not the same man as before, certainly not after choosing to live in the city for a few years. Even when he was compelled to move back to the area, he’d choose to travel every other weekend to meet said co-workers for “engagements” late at night. He looked like a Desi guido, had been the criticism Shaizya had laid before him, hiccuping and turning away, to gaze at Samir, who at that time was alone on a couch, yawning into a cup.
Who are we but reflections and mirrors, once Jian thought. He reached out and touched Shaizya’s palm, cradling it. They traded grins and smiles, and later, they met again at the 24-hour Dunkin instead, sitting on the same side of their table. But that was that. Since then, all he could focus on was Arjit’s obsession with him, how no one else seemed perturbed by this. One evening, to take his mind off things as best he could, he visited his parents, who lived in the same tiny house he and his older sister had grown up in.
The house was part of a broader gated community where there were no literal gates, but to use the swimming pool or the tennis courts, one needed to pay a residual monthly fee on top of other fees or possibly fines due to how unkempt the front lawns were. But based on everything he’d heard from his father, who would drop these little hints about life as they’d usually sit in the sunroom, where Jian’s drum kit as an overzealous child of bands like TVOTR & Nirvana (an old soul), took up more than half the space. Initially, the sunroom was built for more space during the afternoons if they had guests, but in the summer, due to the design of it, it was too unbearable to even sit there, the sweat sizzling off their skin. Hazy lines forming on the edges of their eyelids.
“41…42…43…” he could hear his mother in the adjoining room, their kitchen, counting off as she scrubbed her hands. Earlier in the week, his mother was on the couch, murmuring prayers, but once she saw him step through the door, her face lit up. A grin appeared on her face as he eventually stood where he was, unsure if he really wanted to be there at that point. On the TV set was Al Jazeera, streaming another news conference of the president of the United States shaking hands with someone who ran a private military force. That’s all he knew.
Since getting doxed that one time, he’d been rather reticent in checking for more reasons to get upset. But his mother shook her head and called the men two apes in disguise. “They probably dined happily on their own shit before this meeting,” she said in bits of English and Mandarin, causing Jian’s father to snort as he brought in a plate of mints for the coffee table. She went back to murmuring, counting off beads. When they were younger, since all their town had were either Korean attended churches, Hindu temples and mosques, they’d drive an hour or two to one of the larger Buddhist temples available, where her mother would plant herself squarely in the middle of the large hall, shut her eyes, and stay still, except for her lips moving, for hours on end, forcing him sometimes to trail off, and mutter or sometimes chuck rocks at the fish in the koi pond. He never could stay in one place, although he was desperately trying to.
“82…83…” her mother’s voice continued, like a dream sequence. His father, while they sat and drank beers in the sunroom, raised his voice. “Can you please stop before you get a cut??” This only caused Jian’s mom to count even louder. Jian’s father leaned back in his beach chair, chuckled, and shook his head, and sipped. Jian observed, did his best not to lose himself to the moment completely. But each time he’d come by, all he could think of was how his parents, who’d worked so much all their lives, deserved more than just this tiny home, with its poorly designed sunroom.
He’d wanted to help them travel more. They had some land in China given to their family back in the ‘60s on his mother’s side, but she refused to sell. Either way, it should’ve been up to himself, Jian believed, to pave some way for both of them to live grander than existing within this intense bubble of emptied shopping malls and HOA payments forever.
“It’s not on you to worry about that,” Zubair had said.
“Why not?” had been his response more recently as he was helping Zubair clean the fridge she shared as part of a duplex. She couldn’t bend as low as before; how her veins felt tight already. It was Divya, however, who told Jian to volunteer when he was in his own room at a house he shared, hearing one of his cousins arguing with their girlfriend behind one of the main walls, like they were in college again. He was angry at the idea of how Zubair did not tell either him or Divya. It was Divya who had visited Zubair’s place, and Zubair casually mentioned how she was planning to clear up some of the food for some time now. Putting two and two together, while Zubair searched for a stupid movie for them to watch, Divya decided the necessary next steps.
Jian had more time on his hands as he searched for something more full-time. Lifting up another Greek yogurt, squinting at the expiration date, he hadn’t realized that Zubair who still wanted to assist, had drifted off to one of the main windows of the apartment, the one that had a view, if one could consider it as such, of the local Turkish restaurant, alongside a bevy of Chinese takeout spots, and a Filipino buffet place. She despised buffets. How easily their food could poison you and cause your stomach to curdle.
But on most days now, given the pain that would jolt her awake, she would have to rely on the buffet, being only able to drive a few miles away on most days. In other days, all she could rely do was pray for her dear friend Gapapentin to take her away, and make it easier for her to drift in and out of traffic playing loud, blaring music, Deftones or something else she didn’t like just for the sake of not having her eyelids shut completely. Her bosses, having been informed of the situation, were now emailing her more and more about “clarity” concerning her recovery timeline. Projects needed “in-person” supervision. Mens’ zippers needed to be zipped.
Rolling his eyes, he resisted, and continued putting things away into a black garbage bag lying on the floor that too looked dull.
“It’s different for some of you than it is for me,” he said, but situating his face toward the deep recesses of the fridge.
Growing up, as much as some, such as Amit and later, his friend Raghu, who would later on move away and only return for Diwali, with someone new on his arm every year, tried to incorporate him into the group, especially as neighbors whose families lived in the same gated not gated community, there was much between them. Instead of extra sunrooms added, they had vacations to Greece or Italy, right after seeing family in India. Rather than a new giant TV that finally had Roku, his friends had their own TVs in their rooms. When Jian was figuring out the loan processes, realizing that somehow, he’d be paying back more than he would be borrowing, Amit received a Diwali gift that covered at least the first year of tuition. He had strongly hinted at this dynamic to her. But of course, she just made a face at him, as if smelling something rancid.
“What do you want me to say? I’ve said it again, and again, it’s not up to you,” she said, and before he could process and respond, she hobbled, gritting her teeth, forcing him to swallow the bile rising up in his gut and throat.
After the engagement party, all Zubair wanted to do was dip her entire body into a hot bath and possibly live there for weeks and weeks, not to answer emails or phone calls, not to pay bills that kept mounting, not to have to walk anywhere she didn’t need to. Her parents and her two brothers kept leaving voicemails. She would respond to one of her other male cousins, Kabir, with whom she conceded that yes, maybe she’d pushed herself too far with the organizing of the festivities.
Kabir had started piecing together problems with Zubair’s health, especially after she had tears in her eyes one afternoon after they’d just gone around the block “like old times,” grabbing some Dunkin, commenting on the fact that every week Kohl’s was having deals. Like most men, he hadn’t realized the anguish written on her face until it was very, very explicit. She both hated him for not noticing sooner, how little she talked after some time, and, of course, hated the fact that he did see what she’d tried so hard to contain.
She’d been doing all the right things since then. Going to therapy. Eating well. Consuming her medicine each and every day. Still, it was challenging not to wake up, hating it all, when her limbs and bones felt so sore. Her hips feeling rusted. At night, the sides of her feet every few days would spasm and contract. Muscle cramps like she’d never experienced before would grab hold, causing her to swing upright, biting down on her palms.
“Write down what you want to get out of this journey together,” said her therapist, a woman with black hair pulled back, slicked back. She reminded her of a version of an auntie if that auntie had grown up idolizing Michael Douglas for some reason.
“Not to have neuropathy,” had been Zubair’s immediate response.
The woman did smile. She was kind, admittedly, and patient. Maybe a bit too patient, Zubair thought before changing to someone new.
“You’re unfair,” said Divya to Zubair after she suggested she could help clear out the fridge, and Zubair shut her down. “You make decisions and then want us to watch you suffer with those decisions,” Divya continued.
“Can you please stop…?” Zubair had said, trying to take in deep breaths. Turning to Divya, who kept insisting on a reality that for Zubair didn’t resonate just yet.
“You do realize that when I try to have sex, even when I imagine it, I think of pain in my legs, do you get that?” she finally said, which stopped Divya for a moment. Divya had heard this before. But every time, it was, of course, difficult to absorb and think about. But it was also a tactic by Zubair to deflect, deflect, deflect.
“That’s not our fault…” said Divya, knowing instantly what a poor choice of words that was.
“Yes, I’m fully aware I should’ve asked more questions earlier on,” Zubair said, her voice heading into spiral mode.
“You’re being unfair, that’s the issue right now.”
“And so what? I have a right to be unfair. To be upset.”
“Right.”
“And honestly, what was I supposed to do? Just stay home and let my cousin have a shitty engagement party.”
“Yes. Of course, yes.”
“Why? She’s my cousin. I helped raise her!”
“That is not true. Are you kidding me?”
“What are you talking about? When she was younger, her parents would go off on trips. I’d have to babysit. Check on her.”
“So did uncle and aunty.”
“My parents can’t even stop arguing over prices at Costco for them to notice someone else.”
“Okay. That is seriously messed up to say about them. They’ve been calling you day and night.”
“What are you? My agent? My lawyer?”
Divya crunched her jaw. But a part of her wanted to also embrace her friend. But for them to be covered in a ball of flame.
Zubair now was the one insisting. “I had all these ideas for this year, you know? To go places before this administration got even worse. Before this country completely loses it. I wanted to go to Iceland! But I can’t even have sex! Do you understand that??”
In a low voice, but audible. “Yes, I don’t, but…you’ve told me…” Divya said. But before Zubair could launch her next armada around the coast, Divya exclaimed, “But you clearly know when you’re being difficult. I know you know that because you’re never this way with Shaizya, or with Samir, or with anyone at the party, all of them basically never there for you when you needed them. You know what I’m saying. Don’t pretend. Don’t try and change the subject.”
Outside, a flock of geese flew. Sunlight beamed in refracted beams. People could be heard talking on the street, and the rattling of shopping carts across the street. Her residential road bled into the rest of modern society. The consumerism reflecting back monuments that could never cease to be worshipped. Her mind had drifted. But she was still angry.
And so, she said what she needed to say. Divya, in the end, hovered and eventually made something up and left.
Zubair, after not hearing from her for the next few days, would call, forced to leave a voicemail instead.
On a Friday night, Amit asked if everyone was available to meet up at a bar outside the E.B. mall, where they used to hang out after their parents dropped them off. He didn’t feel like, for the first time, going into the city, and didn’t feel like going into New Brunswick either. It felt saner somehow to go to a bar attached to a dying mall instead. Everyone in the chat probably got the sense that the group Amit was part of had grown tired of his antics, his bragging, his abrasiveness, his lies. Either way, Samir went, so did Kabir, who was back on the straight and narrow after leaving a one-sided relationship. A few others joined, including Divya.
Jian was invited too, but Divya was the one to mention him in the chat, to tag him to see if he was free. Jian had been now driving for Uber to make some extra cash as he reapplied for some graduate programs in the meantime. He’d earn enough for maybe a drink, or two, and an appetizer to spare. But he had initially been interested in skipping the gathering entirely so he could drive more. Such plans had been derailed when he again spotted Arjit’s uncle’s van outside his home, and this time, he felt he had no choice but to go up to it, imagining his feet stomping on the ground, and knock on the driver’s side of the window, which had been fogged up by the cold.
He could see a figure stirring.
“Dude, I know it’s you,” Jian said when the window hadn’t been cracked open yet. A fear lingered that the headlights would flip on, and there would be him dragged alongside it, holding onto the door like an idiot savant. “If you don’t open up, I will definitely call the actual police,” he finally threatened.
A window was gradually rolled down. “You know you won’t,” Arjit’s beard was unkempt to say the least. He smelled like Axe body spray, never a good sign for an adult man. In the past, Arjit himself was consumed by trying out new colognes, new scents from the shops in downtown Edison. Some of them smelled pungent but unique as he’d parade through every gathering, nodding over at people he barely knew, and how they felt about him. But Arjit was probably one of the biggest guys at their high school. He was called on by Amit once to defend him against a white kid who lifted weights and wrestled. The kid was Jewish and called Amit a sand monkey for some reason, jokingly, he’d said at first, until he was laughing too hard about it. So, Amit tapped Arjit to help him that day. Not a single punch was thrown. A simple glance at Arjit stepping up from the crowd was enough.
“And what will you do then if I did? You’d look worse than me. They already know you well enough to know how you are. How you embarrass them.” Jian figured to just lean in this time. He was done every day walking home from the bus stop, which always arrived a half hour later than it should, leaving him with the streetlights flipping on. Down a residential road next to even more strip malls, where businesses had gone up for rent or some had been transformed into more dispensaries.
The houses that were more magisterial were just another couple of blocks away, nestled in some peace and quiet. But even then, some of the roads needed paving. Street signs had started to lean across the road. An uncle of his had lived there once. His own parents wanted to buy a home there and were close to that alleged dream.
Finally, Arjit exited the vehicle. He towered over the world, it seemed. He punched Jian in the stomach, causing him to gasp. He grabbed Arjit’s arm and kicked Arjit in the nuts almost immediately, with momentum. He gagged and threw Jian away.
Suddenly, lights in other windows flipped on. Quickly, Arjit scrambled into his van, turned it on. Afraid that Arjit would unintentionally run him over, he did something he’d only seen in Netflix movies and rolled away onto the grimy sticky sidewalk that was a narrow strip anyway governed by brush. Despite the itching that started to travel up his back, he watched Arjit’s truck turn the corner, hurtling itself through the night. He himself went back inside as soon as it was gone with one of his roommates, his cousin, peeking through the blinds, immediately asked what the fuck was that. He compared it to a scene from a Coen Brothers film. Not getting the reference, Jian simply rushed into his room, closed the door, and posted on Arjit’s wall on Facebook, announcing to everyone that he was insane and a danger to others.
He then tossed the phone aside, and sighed, and collapsed on the bed. Soon after, his mother called, asking if he wanted leftover seafood pancakes she had made. It was the first time she’d made anything in several days, willing finally to manage dirtying the counters. She wouldn’t allow her father to touch anything in the kitchen. All they survived on was leftovers from random orders, the same food, but doused in more unhealthy chunky sauce. She sounded like herself. He knew the cycles but was happy to hear her voice. He told her he’d be there to pick some up, imagining himself on the couch in his parent’s living room, listening to her make some of the pettiest comments about other peoples’ hair and clothing, how she once described another Asian man, someone who worked for the far-right administration that opened several camps in their town, as a “reason for post-abortion to be legal.” He snorted. His father nearly dropped the phone he was on, probably in a meeting. His mother snorted too, then burst out laughing, but making sure her hands did not touch parts of her body she felt unclean. Still, her laughing consumed the room.
Still, anger twisted his chest in pangs of pain.
“Arjit is on his way,” Amit announced after looking at his phone.
They were all arranged on one of the larger elongated tables at the bar, a gauzy purple-ish glow on everyone’s faces as all of the TV screens chugged through game after game. Someone dribbling. Someone firing the pigskin through tangled fingers. Only one screen had some anchor on CNN discussing with five other people something or another about the latest law having to do with the formal stripping away of birthright.
Jian couldn’t help but pay somewhat attention to the screen, before the words like particles started to descend onto his skin and hair. Everyone else put their glasses up except for him and Divya, who knew what had happened based on reading the Facebook post. Glancing at Jian, who had been shifting in his chair, and the chair for some obscene reason for a sports bar that always had dim lighting creaking as it did, she wanted to maybe touch his arm, let him know she was there. Instead, she noticed bright lights causing her to blink, emanating from the front of the restaurant, glowing like twin beams of a spaceship.
Having been silently observing, Jian was the first to notice the large truck featuring an American flag and an Israeli flag sprouting from its backside. For a moment, everyone else kept laughing, pretending, or even just enjoying some of the snacks arrayed before them before they too realized the lanky but tall man entering the space, an AR something slung over his shoulder.
Suddenly, all that was heard throughout the restaurant was the sports announcers previewing that week’s Wednesday night football rematch featuring the Philadelphia Eagles & some other team from Cleveland.
Boots were heard thumping as the man gravitated towards the main bar, motioning for a drink. Some of the other customers began to filter out. Some simply continued talking as if they were on pause in a video recording. Amit, however, was no longer speaking, appearing concerned this time as he took timely sips, as Samir began texting under the table.
It was Divya who suddenly received a phone call from Zubair, who she hadn’t spoken to in almost a week. At first, she thought of not answering, but for some reason, this time, her arm moved the phone to her ear instead.
“Where are you??” Zubair exclaimed.
Practically whispering, Divya answered.
“The masjid at Applebrook Road,” Zubair repeated, out of breath, “The masjid at Applebrook Road was just attacked. Some guy shot it. Some guy—”
Zubair’s eyes grew wide, as she looked over at Jian. Instantly, he knew and tried to get up, but his feet felt slippery. Police lights echoed suddenly down the road, prompting the man to casually turn, take another sip, and fire a pistol at Amit’s raised hand.
The bullet tore through but finally pinged against the window behind them. People screamed. The bartender dove under. Another simply tried to rush over the bar, but collapsed and didn’t move. Jian and Samir ran to Amit and dragged him away. Divya grabbed whoever’s purse it was holding space for Arjit when he’d arrive. Shaizya yelled at Divya to keep moving.
Once law enforcement arrived with several cars and one armored tank, they took the man into their custody, him beaming as they lowered his head into the car.
Sunlight was burning her face as Zubair lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Every once in a while, she could hear Divya and Jian talking, giggling or laughing, or turning up the volume on the TV set. They’d been watching some British Bake-Off earlier in its twentieth season, and one of the contestants, a very tall woman from Ramallah was on the show. She’d been so far leading the pack, and there were articles written about her story, how she just evaded death multiple times.
But halfway through an episode, Zubair’s feet burned more intensely than in weeks. Her toes suddenly felt as if they were being caught in a vice. She could feel another muscle spasm. At first, she refused Divya’s help. But once in bed, she murmured a low thank you after allowing for the gabapentin to work through her system instead.
When she woke up, that was all she could hear: the sound of the TV, Divya’s voice, and now Jian’s.
Resentment was still rising inside her. A distance was set, however much it had eroded since the tragedy. No one else had to ration out days spent outside for fear of debilitating pain the next day, or the next. Ruining plans and any semblance of normal. And in abnormal times, that disappearing act can feel especially cruel. Her boss had been emailing her to spend more time at the office in person, and Divya promised to help with filing for disability, which was its own set of mini-crises. But as her therapist reminded her, often constantly, was the fact that she at least had her medicine, and there was an expectation of her body healing after a certain point.
Still, Divya herself agreed with Zubair that it was justified to be upset. At everything.
“Do you want to keep resting? It’s ok if you do,” Divya said, suddenly in the room, smiling.
“Was that Jian?” Zubair asked, her voice still scratchy.
“He left a few minutes ago,” Divya said, now on the edge of the bed. “But I think he said he will call you tomorrow or later this week.”
“That’s a pretty big range,” Zubair said, grinning.
“Yea, maybe he said either this week or next year if that’s ok.”
“Hmm. Yes, that’s perfect. By then, I’ll need him to carry me from room to room anyway.”
Divya rolled her eyes but smiled. She convinced Zubair to come to the living room and finish watching the season. Waiting for an answer, Divya scanned the room. It was actually still more organized than her own space, with the laundry mostly fitting in the hamper in the corner of the room and the white sheets seeming to glow. Part of her still wanted to talk to Zubair about the months, if not years, of rudeness. The snippiness. The refusal to listen and go see a medical expert on why her feet and legs ached so much for days and days.
At some point, they needed to hash it out.
Zubair could sense that too. But rolled onto her side and raised her body off the bed.
“Let’s order some cake,” Zubair said.
“You can’t have cake,” Divya countered, waiting in case Zubair would lose her balance getting up.
“It was an ill-timed joke,” Zubair said dryly. She would finally get to her feet, grimacing. But it was one foot after the other, and finally, after using the restroom and Divya grabbing some carrots and hummus, they stretched out their legs on the recliner.
Zubair, while munching, recommended they call Shaizya.
Divya at first pretended like she didn’t hear anything cause she believed what she heard was something that was one of her own thoughts. But Zubair repeated.
“Shaizya? Are you sure?” Divya said.
Zubair nodded and handed Divya her phone to call.
It would be an hour later, and Shaizya arrived, with her cousin, Zara. Zubair helped set up some chairs, and they started talking about what had happened instead. The TV set was switched onto Al Jazeera. It was at this point when Divya’s body started to shake, and she wept. Dragging in harsh, jagged breaths, she did her best to hold firm. They stayed where they were, rubbing her back.
Zubair wanted to get up and offer water, so she asked Zara to do so, instructing her on where to get a cup from the cabinet. The crying got more intense, and Divya was unable to hold back. The TV volume was lowered to a hum since Divya, after taking in a few ragged breaths, insisted she wanted to still know what was going on everywhere else. Maybe as a distraction? It didn’t make total sense.
After her breathing became more normal, however, they decided to call more people over next time, and to invite people from the mosque, with Zubair saying her space was available for them when they needed it to be.
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